A Late Spring Breakfast and Garden Tour

June 3, 2024

A Late Spring Breakfast and Garden Tour

The gardens are glistening with color at my Bedford, New York farm - so perfect for a spring day business meeting.

Last week, I hosted a breakfast at my home for a group of business colleagues and associates. The weather was perfect - sunny with temperatures in the 70s. We dined al fresco on my terrace parterre and enjoyed delicious croissants with apricot jam I made, and fresh fruit including strawberries just picked from my garden. Afterward, I showed them my blooming herbaceous peonies, the vegetables that are already growing so beautifully, and my living maze - so lush and green.

Here are some photos, enjoy.

: This time of year is always so beautiful. All the trees and shrubs are so lush including the boxwood and the weeping katsura on the left just outside my Winter House kitchen.

: Many of the ornamental urns are already planted for the season. This is an agave. Behind it is a golden barberry hedge.

: Here is one of two hand-casted antique fountains. They provide such a refreshing stop for visiting birds.

: Under the shade of the umbrellas, I put out our breakfast – croissants, fresh fruit, and homemade apricot jam.

: Look at these gorgeous strawberries. They were just picked from my patch minutes before my guests arrived.

: And of course, I cut fresh peonies from the garden to decorate our table.

: After breakfast, I led a brief tour through the gardens. First, we walked past the peonies. Everyone admired the large boxwood surrounding the garden and the trees beyond.

: Right now, there are still rows and rows of gorgeous peony blooms – it’s always a big treat for guests to see them.

: When I first planted my peony garden, I focused on pink varieties, and planted 11-double rows of 22-peony types. I chose the varieties for their colors, their forms and their long blooming periods.

: The garden features one crop of flowers for a couple of weeks only once a year, and then that’s it – until the next season when they bloom with splendor once again.

: Then, I led the group to my half-acre large vegetable garden now in its second year. The brassicas are all growing so well already.

: This is one of the many cabbages. To get the best health benefits from cabbage, it’s good to include all three varieties into the diet – Savoy, red, and green.

: In this bed, I plant Chinese cabbage, or napa cabbage, which is slightly sweet and mild.

: And look at the kale. Kale or leaf cabbage is a group of vegetable cultivars within the plant species Brassica oleracea. They have purple or green leaves, in which the central leaves do not form a head. I am so pleased with how well everything grows in this garden.

: These are the leaves of our artichokes. Globe artichokes, Cynara scolymus, are popular in both Europe and the United States. Artichokes are actually the flower buds, which will emerge from the center of the plants. We grew so many artichokes last year – I am looking forward to this year’s bountiful crop.

: Next, a quick visit with my peafowl. I keep all my birds in large, protected enclosures because of the predators that sometime wander through the property.

: Adjacent to the peafowl pen is the goose pen. I’ve had Pomeranian guard geese for many years, but I also keep Sebastopol geese, Toulouse geese, African geese, and Chinese geese.

: Here are some enjoying a little rest under the umbrellas.

: The next stop was my maze. We walked from the bottom half of the paddock and between these London plane trees. The London plane tree, Platanus × acerifolia, is a cross between two sycamore species: Platanus occidentalis, the American sycamore, and Platanus orientalis, the Oriental plane. This very large tree with maple-like leaves grows to roughly 75 to 100 feet with a spread of 60 to 75 feet.